Office Management

How your new institution goes about achieving its objectives is as important as the objectives themselves. Money in the form of donor funding and membership revenues usually only comes with credibility and visibility - two attributes that are deficient in the early stages of establishing an institution.

Probably the two greatest expenses that you will have to cover in the first years of operation are communications and administrative premises. Good communications are vital. They will initially be your biggest headache because once you have published and advertised the aims and mandate of your institution people will want to contact you to take part in your events and to use your services.

To give you an idea of the level of service expected in today's e-connected world here are the results of some statistical surveys developed for the customer service industry (call centres, citizens advice offices, etc.) in several European countries:

§     If telephone inquiries are not responded to on the day that they were received the potential customer is unlikely to call back.

§     If people telephone more than three times during the day and find no one to talk with at the other end of the line they are also unlikely to call back.

§     If an e-mail message is not responded to within 48 hours the potential customer will not contact the institution again.

§     Potential customers that receive results below expectations as above are 80% likely to make a negative remark about the service level to their network of associates and friends.

§     Potential customers that receive responses at the minimum expected service level (as above) are 35% likely to pass on positive referral (word of mouth).

This means that even if you cannot provide a personal response within the time frame above you must, at least, provide an automatic answering message to inform the caller that he or she has reached the institution and indicate the time when they can expect a response.

For example: " Welcome to the Ruritanian Association of purchasing and logistics. Please leave a message and a telephone number where you can be contacted after 18.00 - we will respond to you tomorrow. More information about our activities can be found on our web site: www.rurapl.net "

Facilities

When starting-up the support institution think about all possible alternatives that could give you the necessary access to facilities (office room, training room, conference room, etc.) at the most efficient cost. Renting training and conference room on a regular basis is in general very expensive. You will have to think of how often the room will be used and who will pay for the room when it is not used.

Rent is considered a fixed cost, it occurs even if no activity at all takes place in your institution. You should try to keep fixed cost as low as possible, because in the beginning you will not have enough clients and resources to produce enough revenue to pay for these costs.

Experience showed that there are a lot of favourable solutions available for those institutions looking for creative ways to ensure availability of room.

Some examples are listed below:

·    Alliance with an organisation that has enough training and or office room and either “donates” the room to you or rents it to you at a price that is much lower than the market price. Examples: universities, sector associations, chambers, bigger training institutions, etc.

·    Alliance with hotels and event organisations who would benefit from the institution’s events taking place in their location either in the form of additional business or in the form of filling capacity gaps. In some cases these organisations will also allow you to rent or use a fixed room for office purposes.

·    Specialisation on in-house events and training with the client (e.g. if your members and clients have enough room for your services). In case the client does not have enough room he has to pay for the rent separately. The institution would need to arrange for room sources that are available for these occasions. Furthermore you would still need some office room.

·    Use available room in one of the founder’s or member’s houses or locations. This solution seems more appropriate for office room. The room should be only dedicated to the support institution and still has to offer the necessary facilities. Be aware that the office room will need to be representative and trustworthy. Furthermore, the institution might not want to be dependent on a member’s or founder’s good will.

Read about creative solutions regarding premises and administrative support from ITC’s current partner institutions.

Which facilities should your office room offer?

Depending on the size, the kind and nature of your activities and the financial sources available your need for office room will differ a lot. This guide tries to give a short list of facilities considered important for offering support services. The list is neither complete nor exclusive.

The room should at least offer the following:

·    Accessibility with cars (how to go there, parking possibility) and ideally public transport

·    Depending on the country’s climate, ensure appropriate heating or air conditioning facilities

·    The room should be dry (equipment, books,…) and allow for enough light to work in it.

·    Access to running water and standard toilettes (for staff and visitors)

·    A working telephone line to connect a standard telephone, a fax and an Internet modem.

·    At least 5 electrical outlets and the possibility to use multi-outlets or surge protectors

·    Space for book shelves, office desk(s), office and computer equipment, meeting table and chairs, mini-kitchen or refrigerator (staff and guests)

Equipment

Regarding the equipment the institution will need to be up to the country’s business communication standards. Furthermore, the institution will have to decide what the office will be used for (e.g., reception of client visits, holding meetings, library, printing and copying, etc.). For some investments the institution will need to calculate whether it is cheaper and feasible to do it in their own office or whether they use external services (e.g., copying, printing, coffee or tea facilities, etc.). In the recent time more and more multi-functional office machines have been developed. These offer a copy, fax, printer and scanner functionality in one machine. The following equipment is considered important:

·    Telephone

·    Fax Machine

·    Personal Computer (incl. floppy disk, cd rom, high speakers, graphic card)

·    Keyboard and min. 14 “ screen

·    Internet Access (Modem)

·    Printer (colour)

·    Office desk(s) and chairs

·    Book shelves

·    Safe/lockable cupboard (important contracts, bank documents, cash, passwords, etc.)

·    Some dishes (cups, glasses, plates)

·    Office material (files, pencils, paper, stapler, hole puncher, floppy disks, cd roms, etc.)

Information Technology Support

A solid IT support is indispensable for professional support associations or institutions. Throughout this guide you will see that the use of information technology is considered very important starting with financial planning, accounting, email and mail correspondence, developing brochures and presentations to Internet Marketing and maintaining contact databases etc.

The first start is the acquisition of a computer system including the hardware (screen, keyboard, mouse, printer, laser, tower incl. processor, disk, CD-ROM, high speakers) and the software (word processing, calculations, presentation, database, project management, web editor, internet browser, adobe, photo edition and whatever you might consider necessary).

Find below a list of hardware and software including capacity limits that you might consider.

See http://www.itforcharities.co.uk/free.htm for free software downloads for professional support institutions.

All the above information should be stored in your computer and software Inventory. See the attached template.

See a check list of issues for Web site development

See Internet Marketing for more information on how to build your own Web site and contract an Internet Service Provider.